An autonomous vehicle is a vehicle that is capable of sensing its environment and navigating with little or no user input. It does so by using sensing devices such as radar, lidar, image sensors, and the like. Autonomous vehicles further use information from global positioning systems (GPS) technology, navigation systems, vehicle-to-vehicle communication, vehicle-to-infrastructure technology, and/or drive-by-wire systems to navigate the vehicle.
While recent years have seen significant advancements in autonomous vehicles, such vehicles might still be improved in a number of respects. For example, it is not unusual for an autonomous vehicle to encounter a double-parked vehicle or other such obstacle in its lane. In such cases, the obstacle might occlude to some extent the field of view of various sensing devices that are attempting to monitor oncoming traffic.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide systems and methods for managing obstacles such as double-parked cars that might be encountered by an autonomous vehicle. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the foregoing technical field and background.